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Commentary

Instagram Remains Popular With Teens, Their Most Used Platform

Marking a major shift in social media trends, Instagram has overtaken Snapchat as the most used platform among U.S. teens.

That’s according to a new report from Piper Jaffray, which
found that 85% of this key demographic use Instagram at least one a month, just edging out the 84% who use Snapchat on a monthly basis.

For what it’s worth, a clear majority
of teens (46%) said they still consider Snapchat to be their favorite social platform, which was significantly more than the 32% who said they preferred Instagram.

The only group that loves
Instagram more than teens appears to be advertisers, Piper Jaffray found.

Teens appear happy to return the affection, as nearly 70% said they prefer brands to connect with them through
Instagram. That’s far more than the roughly 40% who said they prefer brands connecting with them through Snapchat.

“Instagram continues to show dominance in selling, as teens
overwhelmingly prefer brands contact them on Instagram,” Erinn Murphy, Michael Olson, and Nicole Regan, senior research analysts Piper Jaffray, note in the new report.

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For
Instagram-parent Facebook, the good news ends there. That’s because teens continue to abandon Facebook’s flagship property at an alarming rate.

Over the past years, for example,
the share of 15-year-olds using Facebook’s eponymous app fell from 40% to just 28%, Piper Jaffray found.

Blowing the competition away, 47% of teens rank Amazon as their favorite Web
site. “Prime adoption continues to be very strong,” according to the Piper Jaffray analysts.

As for streaming video platforms, Netflix now occupies 38% of young
people’s digital diet, which is better than the 33% of time they spend with YouTube.